Judge Juan M. Merchan, in charge from the Stormy Daniels case trialissued this Tuesday a fine of $9,000 against former US President Donald Trump for having violated the order prohibiting him from attacking witnesses and jurors.
Last week, the prosecution already asked that Trump be sanctioned for breaking the rule with $1,000 for each time he had broken it. This is a relatively small fine compared to the $266 million that Trump has already paid in bail for his civil cases.
Two of the cases in which the former president has violated theTwo of the cases in which the former president has violated the order were the posts that Trump published on his social network, Truth Social, where he attacked his now former lawyer Michel Cohen and the porn actress Stormy Daniels calling them “depraved.” The judge has also ordered Trump to remove these posts and the other attacks from his social media, as well as his campaign website. Aside from fines, Trump could also face jail time for violating this ban.
Cohen is a key witness in the case, since he is the one who was in charge of paying the $130,000 to actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence, as he himself confessed.
Furthermore, according to statements last week by the former editor of the The National Enquirer, David Pecker, Cohen was also the one who was in charge of putting Pecker and Trump in contact to improve the magnate’s image for the 2016 elections and cover up other sexual scandals. Pecker confessed that his job was to “publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and publish negative stories about his opponents.” In the coming days, both Cohen and Daniels are expected to testify in Manhattan court in the first of four criminal trials Trump faces.
Trump’s defense attorney, Todd Blanche, tried to justify that Trump had not violated the ban because his social media posts are political in nature and, therefore, he has not violated the order because he was only responding “to political attacks.” This cost him a very harsh recrimination from Merchan, who warned him that he was “losing all credibility before the court.”
First criminal case
The trial that began on April 22 in New York is a historic event, since it is the first time that a former president sits in the dock for a criminal case. Despite not being considered the most serious case (compared to the attempt to reverse the 2020 elections and the classified Mar-A-Lago documents), it is the only one that has managed to survive the flood of motions by Trump’s defense with the aim of postponing all trials as much as possible until after the elections.
In total, Trump is charged with 34 crimes in the Stormy Daniels case, including document falsification, which is punishable by up to four years in prison. In his records, Trump hid the payment under the concept of “legal expenses.”
This Tuesday, the hearings are expected to continue with the testimony of banker Garry Farro, who was familiar with the accounts involved in the cover-up of the sex scandal. The objective of hiding the affair with Daniels is seen as an attempt to influence the 2016 elections through the concealment of relevant information. Farro, who is not charged with any crime, already began testifying on Friday about the financial records presented by Cohen.
